Interfacial Chemistry Investigation of Initial Fouling Conditions in Isocyanate Production: The Antifouling Performance of AISI 316L Stainless Steel

[Image: see text] The fouling of AISI 316L stainless steel during themanufacture of polymeric methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (pMDI) has been investigated. Studies have been carried out using a laboratory-based rig that simulates the process chemistry of the production plant. A variety of solution concentrations and treatment times have been employed to represent different stages in the production process. Following exposure, steel coupons have been removed and studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). The thickness of the fouling layer, determined by XPS, is found to vary inversely with exposure time and solution concentration. This is a result of the solubility of the different pMDI derivatives that have been formed at different stages, and a reaction scheme is developed to explain these inverse relationships. ToF-SIMS indicates the formation of metal chlorides as a result of the initial treatment of the steel in the reaction vessel with hydrogen chloride. Fragment ions characteristic of reacted and unreacted pMDI (at m/z = 106 and 132 au, respectively) were used as an indicator of the degree of reacted isocyanate groups within the fouling layer and show a decrease with increasing exposure time, as a result of the formation of intermediates such as amines, ureas, carbodiimides, and uretonimines. The ToF-SIMS data was also processed by principal component analysis (PCA). This generally reinforced the conclusions reached by XPS and ToF-SIMS but, in addition, gave confidence in the repeatability of the analyses with the repeat data (of four analyses) clustering very tightly in the PCA score plots.